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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746903">On A Wednesday (In A Cafe)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/InMediasRes/pseuds/InMediasRes'>InMediasRes</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>String of Fate [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - No Beast (The Magicians), Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Everybody Lives, Idiots in Love, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, References to Depression, References to Drugs</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-14</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 14:20:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,315</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28746903</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/InMediasRes/pseuds/InMediasRes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All Eliot feels is his chest expanding to accommodate for the sudden growth of affection for this man. This man, who accepted all of Eliot’s brokenness but couldn’t seem to do it for himself. This man, who now knew how much of a mess Eliot was - could still so easily become – but still wanted to stay, wanted him. Eliot swallows down the heavy feeling of… something threatening to spill up and out of him, and he lifts Quentin’s hand to his lips instead to stem the flow of whatever is bubbling up inside.</p><p>or;</p><p>Eliot takes Quentin out on their first date together.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Margo Hanson &amp; Eliot Waugh, Quentin Coldwater &amp; Julia Wicker, Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>String of Fate [4]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2076294</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>25</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>On A Wednesday (In A Cafe)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hey, so I was meant to have this out a lot earlier but then. Well. I got distracted by a couple of video edits :')</p><p>So this one is a little heavy, even though I had originally planned for a much lighter date, but Eliot &amp; Quentin said otherwise.</p><p>Title taken from Begin Again by Taylor Swift.</p><p>Hope you enjoy :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <hr/><p> </p><p>Eliot was nervous (and perhaps panicking a little). His clothes were strewn all over his room, his hair was wild from running his hands through it multiple times, and he could feel hysteria rising in his chest. It was clawing at his throat, threatening to choke him. He rubbed a hand over his eyes, pressing the heels of them in until he saw sparks; he could feel a headache coming on.</p><p> </p><p>A knock sounds at his door, and he drops his hands, breathing a sigh of relief.</p><p> </p><p>“Alright, what is it this – <em>Fucking hell</em>, Eliot, what have you done to your room?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot spins to see Margo standing in his doorway, eyebrows raised at the state of his room, <em>his clothes</em>. He understands her bewilderment; she had never seen him like this before, agonising over <em>a date</em>, of all things. Eliot Waugh is suave, is sexy, is seductive. What he <em>isn’t</em> is a panicky mess agonising over what to wear to an insignificant date.</p><p> </p><p>Except it wasn’t insignificant though, was it?</p><p> </p><p>No. Something in Eliot told him that this date mattered. That <em>this</em> one is one he couldn’t dismiss. And he didn’t want to anyway; he could feel something tugging him towards Quentin, into his gravitational pull, and the more time he spent with Quentin, the more he wanted to have whatever Quentin was willing to give to him. Even if their date went horribly, and they decided they’d be better off as friends. Even then, that would be fine (whether <em>Eliot</em> would be fine was another matter altogether, but he didn’t want to think about that).</p><p> </p><p>“Margo. Bambi. I need your help,” he pleads, eyes wide with desperation.</p><p> </p><p>“Yes, I can see that,” she replies, turning her judging eyes to him.</p><p> </p><p>“I have a date. In half an hour. I don’t have anything to wear!”</p><p> </p><p>Margo waves her hand dismissively. “Just wear what you usually do, El.”</p><p> </p><p>“No, you don’t understand. It’s with <em>Quentin</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Oh</em>,” she exhales, realisation dawning on her face. There’s a long pause as she studies him, making him drop his gaze and shift uncomfortably. “Well, why didn’t you lead with that?” Margo eventually says, still looking at him calculatingly.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>Don’t</em> –” he starts, a warning note in his tone, only for Margo to cut him off.</p><p> </p><p>“How about you wear this, with this, and… <em>This</em>.”</p><p> </p><p>Margo goes around his room, picking up a few items of clothing and holding them up for Eliot to inspect. Thankful for Margo’s level head, he steps forward to take the clothes from her and lay them out on the bed so he can see them in all their glory.  Largely, he’s just relieved she’s dropping the subject (<em>for now</em>, his mind whispers, which yes, thank you brain, now shut up).</p><p> </p><p>A white Oxford shirt, dark cream vest with faint beige stripes and gold buttons, a light cream pair of slacks with a brown belt, a dark grey patterned tie, and a navy blue cardigan with red trimming and stripes on the sleeves. He quirks a brow inquisitively at the cardigan, to which Margo shrugs her shoulders, only saying, “What? It’s getting cold outside.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot changes into the outfit picked by Margo (he’s not shy about being naked in front of Margo – they’ve seen each other naked before, and besides, it’s <em>Margo</em>), and then spends the remaining time left to fix his hair back into their effortless sweep. The whole time, Margo just sprawls on his bed, watching him carefully which he ignores. If he acknowledges her observation, she’ll see it as an invitation to talk about it, and he currently did not have time for that conversation (he was not avoiding it. <em>He was not</em>).</p><p> </p><p>With five minutes to spare, he gives a spin in front of Margo with a flourish. “Well? How do I look?”</p><p> </p><p>She scans him from head to toe before leaning back onto his pillows and giving a small smirk. “Why Eliot, who knew you could clean up nice?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot answers Margo’s smirk with one of his own. “I don’t know what you mean Bambi, I always clean up nice.”</p><p> </p><p>“That you do, El. That you do.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot checks the time on his phone and curses softly. He’s supposed to be meeting Quentin in two minutes. He rushes back to his wardrobe, picking out his scarf and jacket and sliding them on before all but running out of his door. He pauses halfway down the hall before turning back and poking his head in the door; Margo is still lounging on his bed, an amused look in her eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, remembered me, did you?” She teases, crossing her arms across her chest, mockingly indignant.</p><p> </p><p>Eliot holds a finger up in warning, supressing a chuckle. “Remember, it’s my room. Don’t do anything that I wouldn’t do.”</p><p> </p><p>As he closes the door on Margo, he can hear her call out, “That’s supposed to be my line!”</p><p> </p><p>He can’t stop the smile breaking out across his face, feeling much better and less nervous than before. Trust Bambi to ground him when he needed it most.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>Eliot had decided to introduce Quentin to his favourite café. He liked to make everyone believe that he had always been the way he is now, but the truth was… His life started here. At this very café. This café was just a place for Brakebills students to hang out, but for Eliot… To Eliot, it embodied the moment when he truly became free; free from drugs, free from his past, free to become who he really was. Though he struggled with that last one every now and then.</p><p> </p><p>Especially when feelings were involved. <em>Particularly </em>then.</p><p> </p><p>Eliot gestures for Quentin to take a seat at a table by the window. “I’ll get in line, just you get comfortable.”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin smiles at him, soft and nervous. Eliot reaches out and brushes a strand of hair away from his face, neatly placing it behind his ear. He gives Quentin a brief, reassuring kiss before slipping away to join the queue, returning several minutes later with two steaming cups of caffeine. He places Quentin’s cup in front of him before sitting down, shrugging out of his jacket and unravelling his scarf.</p><p> </p><p>Eliot can’t help but take Quentin in over the rim of his cup; he has a dark blue long sleeved top on underneath an unbuttoned blue and red gingham shirt, coupled with a pair of black jeans and shoes, and his brown satchel always by his side. He is <em>perfect</em>. Eliot hides a smile in the guise of taking a sip, winking when Quentin meets his gaze.</p><p> </p><p>“You got me caramel,” Quentin starts, taking a sip of his own coffee, the corners of his lips twitching up.</p><p> </p><p>“You like caramel, don’t you?”</p><p> </p><p>“I do, yeah,” Quentin lifts his cup for another sip, but the slight crinkles in the corner of his eyes belie the smile he’s trying to conceal.</p><p> </p><p>Eliot sweeps his gaze around, briefly nodding to a few people he recognizes.</p><p> </p><p>“So I have to ask,” Quentin starts, making Eliot turn his attention back to his date (he tamps down the thrill of <em>Quentin being his date</em>). “Why ballet?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot leans back in his chair, tilting his head in thought. “I… I actually almost went into Musical Theatre,” he muses.</p><p> </p><p>Quentin starts in his chair, leaning forward across the table with wide eyes. “You sing?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh yeah, absolutely. I love singing. But ballet?” Eliot gives a soft smile, almost shy with a touch of self-consciousness, “I lived and <em>breathed</em> ballet. It’s everything. I was free whenever I danced and… Child-Eliot really appreciated that, I guess.”</p><p> </p><p>“So you’ve been doing ballet for – how long?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot lets out a hum as he thinks. He remembers his first ballet show; his parents had taken him and his older brothers out for a night at the ballet (no doubt thinking they were the top of the town to be able to afford a night at the theatre). He remembers the awe he felt at seeing the men being so <em>strong</em> to be able to lift the women high like that, to be able to support them as they floated across the stage, ephemeral in their beauty. The grace with which they had moved to the music, leaping high, high up like they were untouchable. And Eliot had known that that was what he had wanted – to float so high that nobody could touch him anymore. He would rise above them all.</p><p> </p><p>“I must have been about – oh God, six? – when I had my first ballet class,” Eliot says, swimming out of the heavy gravity of long buried memories wanting to ground him in that dark place again; flashes of his dad shouting, of his mum sobbing in the dark, of his ballet teacher secretly letting him in through the back after hours for free, of his bullies.</p><p> </p><p>“<em>That</em> long?” Quentin’s staring at him, wonder and admiration on his face.</p><p> </p><p>“We start young,” Eliot says wryly. He nods at Quentin, mentally shaking off his memories. “What about you? How long have you been playing music?”</p><p> </p><p>“Me? Not long. I think I started guitar about ten years old, but my mum used to give private piano lessons, so I started that first.”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh? You’ll have to play for me one day.” Eliot relishes in the blush that steals its way across Quentin’s cheeks.</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah. Yeah, um. I can – I can do that. Yeah.”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin takes a sip of his coffee for something to do, but Eliot doesn’t mind his awkwardness. It was part of Quentin’s charm. And God, consider himself <em>charmed</em>. They sit in silence for a few moments, sipping their coffees and just observing the people around them, until Quentin asks, “So, why is this place your favourite?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot can hear his blood rush to his ears, can feel his heart thump in his throat. Can he…? Does he dare…? He swallows nervously, feeling his hands sweat. He picks up the napkin beside his cup and starts tearing it into shapeless pieces, not meeting Quentin’s eyes.</p><p> </p><p>“There’s one thing you should know, Q. I come from Indiana, a farm in a little town called Whiteland.” He pauses, tearing the napkin into even smaller pieces. “They weren’t very nice, and. Well, I was bullied a lot, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot chances a glance up at Quentin, who is watching him attentively; there was no judgment or even pity (out of everything, Eliot doesn’t think he could have handled the <em>pity</em>), there was only empathy. Quentin <em>understood</em>. A warm feeling of affection suddenly swarmed up his chest, up his throat, almost choking him. It made the next words harder to force out, but also inexplicably <em>easier</em>.</p><p> </p><p>“I killed someone when I was fourteen.”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin starts, almost knocking over his cup of coffee, but he still doesn’t say a word. Eliot taps his fingers against the table top, feeling the itch for a cigarette but not being able to smoke inside. <em>Fucking hell.</em></p><p> </p><p>“He was this. This – He’d beat me up.” Another pause before – “So I’m walking on the street eating a candy bar ‘cause by then I already ate my feelings at a professional level. I saw him crossing over, coming towards me.”</p><p> </p><p>“El – ” Quentin tries to interrupt, but Eliot stops him with a gesture.</p><p> </p><p>“Please, let me finish. If I don’t say it now, I never will,” he says quietly, eyes fixed on a point over Quentin’s shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>Quentin makes as if to protest, but then settles back into his chair, shuffling it a little to get a bit closer to Eliot. His face is overcome with attentiveness again, and Eliot takes that as his cue to continue.</p><p> </p><p>“He started shouting at me, yelling abuse, the usual. But then he took a swing at me, and I went down. He started beating me, and I. I snapped. I started fighting back, for the first time in my life.” He lets out a chuckle – nervous, slightly hysterical – as he averts his gaze from Quentin’s. “And there was this… Bus coming. And I. I was still on my back, getting the shit beaten out of me, and. I managed to get my legs under him and I – I kicked him off, and he stumbled backwards and well.” Eliot meets Quentin’s eyes, overwhelmed by the <em>understanding</em> still flowing in those depths. “<em>Bam</em>. I immediately knew what I’d done.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot pauses, takes a sip of his now-cold coffee, plays with the plastic lid that came with it. “Logan Kinnear died instantly. Self-defense, they said. And I – continued living my life, hiding in the closet, until I managed to escape to Brakebills. But Indiana had messed me up, Q. Like, really bad. I got here, and I partied for almost an entire year. Drinks, drugs, you name it. I don’t know how I didn’t get kicked out. And then –”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot lets out a laugh, his first relaxed one in a while. “I stumbled into Margo here. I was completely wasted, off my face. I made her spill her coffee all down her beautiful new – e<em>xpensive</em> – dress. She very nearly bit my head off, and demanded I buy her a new coffee. Who was I to argue? And then she chewed me out even more – and not in the fun way, I should add – before she promptly told me to either pay for her dry cleaning, or help her with her showcase. And I chose to help her, because I was freshly disowned out of money and had spent what I had on booze and drugs.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot grins then at the memory of Margo standing there in front of him, hands on her hips and eyes blazing with barely concealed fury at her ruined dress. “She kicked my ass into rehab, and – ” He waves a hand around at the café, “– the rest is history, as they say.” Eliot’s grin softens into a smile, a hint of sadness in the quirk of his lips. “That’s why this café is my favourite. It’s the place I met Margo; she saved my life that day. She’s my best friend.”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin hesitatingly reaches out, rests his hand on top of Eliot’s on the table as he leans forward. “Oh, El. I’m really sorry you had to go through all of that alone. But none of that with – with Logan –” He says his name uncertainly, quickly, like ripping a Band-Aid off, “– You know none of that was your fault, right?”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot looks at Quentin – sweet, beautiful, <em>kind</em> Quentin – with a hint of mischievousness. “If you’re trying to tell me that it gets better –”</p><p> </p><p>“–  God no, no it doesn’t. I’m trying to tell you, ‘you are not alone here’.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot throws his head back and lets out an unconstrained laugh, ignoring the looks he gets for being loud. <em>How did he get so lucky as to land someone who understood him like this?</em> When he finally manages to get himself under control again, Quentin is smiling, eyes sparkling with delight and contentment.</p><p> </p><p>“Thank you,” Eliot says eventually, turning his hand over so he was holding Quentin’s, rubbing his thumb across the back of it.</p><p> </p><p>“For what?”</p><p> </p><p><em>Oh Quentin, you sweet kind thing</em>, Eliot thinks. Aloud, he says “For being you.”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin does that thing where he ducks his head a little, trying to hide behind his hair. A shy smile is playing at the corner of his lips, and Eliot has to reach out to tuck his hair behind his ear so he could see his smile better. He presses a quick kiss to his cheek for good measure, watching with pleasure when his face takes on that pink hue.</p><p> </p><p>Quentin clears his throat, glancing at Eliot and giving his hand a squeeze. “So um, after that, I think. Uh, I think. I should probably tell you about me?”</p><p> </p><p>He poses it as a question, hesitant, uncertain, scared, like he’s going to pull back any minute. Eliot tightens his grip on his hand, continuing to rub soothing circles with his thumb. “Q, you don’t have to if you’re uncomfortable. I don’t need to know.”</p><p> </p><p>But Quentin is already shaking his head, determination set into his eyes. “No, you do. In case it – It might happen while we. Um, while we’re dating.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot’s brows had steadily been rising towards his hairline, bemused but also endeared at Quentin stumbling over his words. Pulling himself out of his musings, Eliot shuffles his chair closer to Quentin. “In case what might happen, Q?”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin visibly gulps, his shoulders beginning to rise to meet his ears in an attempt to make himself smaller and Eliot can feel his hand twitch in his hold, like he wants to pull back. Eliot doesn’t let him. After a moment, Quentin takes a deep breath, steadying himself.</p><p> </p><p>“So. So like. I was sixteen when I was first hospitalised. I – I couldn’t get out of bed, like at all.” Quentin’s looking at him expectantly, like he’s waiting for Eliot to run or – or <em>reject</em> him somehow.</p><p> </p><p>Like he ever could.</p><p> </p><p>All Eliot feels is his chest expanding to accommodate for the sudden growth of affection for this man. This man, who accepted all of Eliot’s brokenness but couldn’t seem to do it for himself. This man, who now knew how much of a mess Eliot was - <em>could still so easily become</em> – but still wanted to stay, <em>wanted</em> him. Eliot swallows down the heavy feeling of… <em>something</em> threatening to spill up and out of him, and he lifts Quentin’s hand to his lips instead to stem the flow of whatever is bubbling up inside.</p><p> </p><p>“I didn’t know that.”</p><p> </p><p>Quentin takes another breath, quick, before saying “My brain breaks sometimes.”</p><p> </p><p>Eliot gives Quentin’s hand another squeeze, encouraging, silently showing his support. He knows about Quentin’s depression, of course he does, but he hadn’t quite known it could be that bad. And all he can do now is listen to Quentin as he is walked through his relationship with depression; how sometimes, when he hits his Bad Days, all he needs is someone to be there to make sure he still has his basic functions, to make sure he eats and sleeps and showers. That someone will be there to coax him out of bed and outside into the fresh air. That they just be <em>patient</em> with him (and Eliot can do that. He can do all of that. He could never imagine being impatient with Quentin, ever).</p><p> </p><p>Eliot sits and listens as Quentin relates to him his thoughts on suicide (how he had, very briefly, considered it each time he had been hospitalised but couldn’t quite bring himself to do it). He is told about his history with Julia, how for the longest time she had been the one to get him out of bed, that she has been his rock since the day they met, that she is his own version of Margo. How his dad had been the one to introduce the Fillory books to him that first time he was hospitalised, which is why he loved them so much – they had quite literally saved his life – and how because of them he had wanted to learn silly magic tricks that he could show off (“I am putting a request in advance to see them at your earliest convenience, Q.”).</p><p> </p><p>Eliot got the entire history of Quentin, Bisexual Disaster and all, right up until his most recent hospitalisation before Brakebills in the summer. Eliot’s heart aches for this man, this <em>beautiful, broken mess</em> of a man, who has struggled just as much as Eliot has, perhaps more. And he thinks <em>You really can be a new man in New York</em>, because here they were, both a little broken, both a little world weary, but had somehow, unexpectedly, found something beautiful despite that.</p><p> </p><p>And somewhere, a piece of Eliot shifts, just slightly, barely noticeable, but nevertheless shifting into place.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I originally had another section planned where they leave the cafe and go watch the sunset together, because they'd been sitting there until closing time, completely unaware of the time passing as they begin to learn each other in a different way than they knew before. But this felt like a natural end to this piece, so here we are.</p><p>If I missed any tags, please please let me know (I'm not even sure I've tagged this one right, so. There we go).</p><p>As ever, all your support and comments has been much appreciated - seriously, they mean a lot for a newbie to the fandom like me &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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